


Independent Honeymoon Shorts

by Schgain



Series: Honeymoon AU [2]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2016-11-06
Packaged: 2018-08-29 07:47:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8481406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schgain/pseuds/Schgain
Summary: Little ficlets that belong within the Honeymoon AU but aren't tied to the actual story itself, featuring Julia and Magnus making friends (and enemies), Julia and Magnus being mushy and in love, and Magnus moving on.





	1. Eros

**Author's Note:**

> As Honeymoon in its production became more and more canon-divergent (what a difference a single soul can make), I decided to make the original work its own thing and move otherwise independent pieces over here for a more casual experience in the AU's world.
> 
> Kudos and comments greatly appreciated!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Magnus is in love.

She laughs, and Magnus is in love.

She dances, twirls so that her skirt billows with her movement, and Magnus is in love.

She flexes her arms, rears back her leg and kicks with startling accuracy, doesn't even flinch when she has to deal with molten tin and silver, and Magnus is in love.

She's not a small woman, not dainty or delicate or fleeting- she is the art studio, warm and full of color and when idle always suggesting activity and creation. She is just barely shorter than him, and she's full of soft curves. From her alluring full lips to the curls of her hair, to the strong bridge of her nose, to her thick eyebrows, to the rolls on her waist and joints, where her belly spills over her trousers hem. And when he looks at her, Magnus is in love.

She isn't faultless- she's bad with children and takes too much pleasure in the inconveniences of others, she pries and pries at people until they relent under her, and sometimes she is a know-it-all. But Magnus doesn't want her to be faultless, and not despite her faults but because of them, he is in love.

She kisses him, tangles her fingers in his hair. She smears lipstick on his mouth and he doesn't mind at all, catches Julia in his broad arms and dips her like they're at the Gazebo all over again, kisses her until she giggles. When he opens his eyes she's looking at him, half-lidded and dreamy, and Magnus is in love.

"I can't believe we survived," she says in a murmur.

"I can't believe it either," he says back, and pulls her back to standing. She's tired, and worn out, and worst of all injured. And Magnus is a carpenter, he should be able to _fix_ this, but there's no magic in his veins, no godly pull besides what Istus has granted him, nothing he can do that could reverse the damage of a gash running down the length of his wife's arm. 

(Sometimes, Magnus thinks about the sentries that Merle makes, the explosive spells that Taako can cast, and Julia's outright _smiting_ of her opponents, and thinks that maybe magic is overrated if people only ever are going to use it for stuff like that. He's a battlemaster, sure, but he doesn't take pride in being violent. Maybe if magic was only ever used to create nice things, instead of bad things, none of this Relic stuff would have ever happened.) 

"We should celebrate," Julia stands on her toes and whispers it into his ear, and he can hear the grin in her voice, feel her hands rest on his forearms. "Where'd you put the phonograph?" 

"Right over here!" He hates having to pull away from her, hates having to step away from the cloud of fragrance that she wears, and pulls out the record player. Johan had built it from scratch save for the case (that was Magnus' doing) and it's an engineering miracle accented with silver swirls and tiny mechanisms. He sets it on the dresser and carefully sets the record on the spindle, and watches the little cogs and gears within start to turn for just a second, before the music starts to play, and Julia yanks his arm. 

The song isn't particularly slow- it's something that should be danced by a big group of people under a maypole, something that reminds them fondly of Ravensroost. Magnus holds up Julia's arm and she spins on her toe, his own steps clumsy and just barely on beat. He tries to sing half-forgotten words, and she laughs at him, but she can't sing it any better and they end up giggling like teenagers. 

They're still tired from battles, tired from running towards danger, tired of revelations and mysteries, of healing the old fashioned way. Eventually Magnus' hands are around her waist, and Julia's hands around their neck, and their dancing has turned to slow rocking back and forth in a circle.

"I'm in love," whispers Magnus, like he's a child confessing a crush. And he is; Magnus Burnsides is in love.

"Good," says Julia playfully, "because I'm in love too. I'll tell you my crush if you tell me yours!" She turns her head and kisses his stubble.

"She's the most beautiful person I've ever met." Magnus confesses. "I can't describe her."

"Well, the man I'm crushing on, he's lovesick, and a big old doofus, and the most handsome man in all of Faerun. But he's so out of my league-- aah!" 

Julia yelps, and then laughs, because Magnus has scooped her into a bridal carry. "I'm gonna marry you all over again! Let's get Madame Director and the Voidfish to officiate it!" he yells, and she throws her head back and laughs, and Magnus is in love.


	2. Agape Ludus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They are her family as much as they are Magnus'.

"Hey, Jules? Mind helpin' me out with cooking? You're the only one I know who isn't a disaster in the kitchen and I could really use another hand." Taako pokes his head into her room, ears flicking expectantly and making his many earrings jingle.

Julia looks up from her books and smiles, glasses sitting crooked on her nose. "Sure thing, Taako. What's cookin'?" 

"I was thinkin' about makin' snowball cookies for the Bureau," he says, raising his hands- they are thoroughly covered in powdered sugar, and seems to have also spread to his tunic despite the valiant efforts of his apron to catch the mess. Julia is certain there is a powder-white trail leading from his room to hers. 

"Oh, sure thing! I haven't made sweets in a while, you'll have to help me." Julia marks her place in her book with a ribbon and stands, brushing imaginary dust off her impeccable skirt. "Are these for Candlenights?"

Taako makes a face accompanied with a dissatisfied groan. "Well, they are NOW, I guess." 

Julia laughs behind her hand. 

"We're gonna double the recipe, so that means four sticks of butter, four cups flour, two tablespoons vanilla, pinch of salt, and two cups confectioner's sugar." Taako claps his hands, a cloud of powdered sugar wafting up around him. Behind him, the oven turns on unbidden at the preheating temperature of 375.

"What about walnuts?" Julia wipes her hands off on on a towel after washing. It is, after all, important to practice good hygiene. Even if Taako wants to forego measuring cups in place of his bare hands. 

"Well, some dipshit might have allergies so it's probably not a good idea. We're just going to leave 'em out and we'll deal." Taako rolls his shoulders and pulls out a bowl. "I missed cookin' with a buddy."

Julia laughs- she's not ashamed of it but still she covers her mouth when she does, opting for this sliver of reservation when not aaround Magnus. "Yeah, Magnus and Merle don't strike me as the cooking type. Though I speak for experience that it's not for Magnus' lack of trying! He often helped me and Pa in the kitchen if he wasn't busy with something else. To varying effects, really." 

Taako smiles, and Julia watches his ears droop ever so slightly. He's thinking about something, some far off memory. One that isn't hers to pry, but she can't help but think about. It's an unspoken rule, she thinks, for these boys to not talk about what they went through. What, then, has Taako seen and done that she can't even begin to know? Could she help if she did know? 

"Let's cream the butter and sugar together," says Taako, a simultaneous break in two reveries. Seems he's as eager to stop reminiscing as Julia is in immersing herself in it. 

"Oh! Right right right." Julia unwraps the pat of butter and sets it in the bowl while she avoids thinking about Taako measuring the sugar with his bare hands. Gross. 

"Merle said the mixer's broke- something about an awry wheat germ shake?" he says, with zero patienc in his voice. "Fuck, I hate mixing by hand."

"No problem!" Julia waves her hand dismissively while Taako adds the sugar. "I'll mix it." 

He looks up at her and quirks an eyebrow. "Really? You?" 

Julia waggles her eyebrows. "You don't become a tinsmith without learning how to lug around heavy solid metal equipment, my dear!" as if to prove her point she flexes, and the seam of her blouse pops. "I can cream some sugar-butter no sweat." her proud grin lights up her face. 

Taako just throws his head back and laughs. "No wonder Magby married you!" 

The cookies are in the oven, and Taako is fussing with a pipe that supposedly lights up magically while Julia flips through a cookbook. 

"I missed having a cooking buddy," he says. 

"So you've said," she replies, not unkindly. 

If only for a moment he pauses in his fidgeting to look at Julia. "Why didn't you stay in Raven's Roost?" 

Julia looks up from the cookbook, over the rim of her glasses. "Beg pardon?" 

Taako shrugs. "You know, after the whole taking out a depot thing with your twue wuv, it sorta seems like what anyone would do is, settle down, raise a few kids, live happily ever after." 

"I can't have children." she says. This too is said not unkindly, but the topic of the matter removes the previous amusement from her voice. Taako, across the kitchen table, pales. 

"Oh." he manages. 

Julia shrugs. "It's not the only reason. But I mean, why do you think Mags and I want a dog so badly?" she laughs then, unabashedly, and Taako gives her a crooked grin. "'Sides, I'm happy with what I'm doing now. Working with the Bureau is a good way to practice my Oath as a paladin." she smiles, hums some soft note, and props her chin in her hand. "Why, Mister Taako, did you never settle down?"

Taako props his feet up on the table and leans back, the pipe giving off a soft rootbeer scented puff of smoke. "Shit's boring."

That makes Julia laugh. "Agreed," she says. 

\---

"Merle?"

She swallows her pride and pokes his head in his room- there are times like this when she cannot help but feel helpless, like a child going to her father. But there is no way to tell Pa what she is feeling, and while he'd try to understand she knows that even presenting him as an artifact of a reclaimer means he is in danger. So she goes to the next best thing. 

(No, no; it's cruel to think of Merle as second fiddle. She loves him separately, not less or more than the way she loves Pa.) 

"Come on in, Jiminy!" he calls, waving from the bathroom. She steps in, giggling at the nickname. His room is as she expected it- there are trinkets of the sea, a model ship that is not particularly expertly crafted, a set of framed photograms depicting beach houses and unfamiliar faces. It's an uneloquent version of home that Julia has no doubt Merle has spent hours attempting to recreate. 

(Julia has not memorized all the tomes provided to her upon training to be a Paladin, but the idea she is trying to convey sticks in her head- this room is not a home, it merely looks like one, and if she had seen Merle's home for what it truly was she would likely find this place a mockery of it. Much, she thinks, like hers and Magnus' suite in the bureau as well. This philosophy, she thinks, is not a pleasant one.) 

Merle steps out of the en suite to find the Missus Burnsides staring at the photograms with increasing fervor. He joins her, wiping his hand off on his flannel pajama bottoms. "You can see I inherited most of the Highchurch charm, huh?" 

Julia laughs, only once, and through her nose. "Are they yours?" 

"The kids?" Merle scratches his whiskers. 

"All of them." Julia says it in a way that betrays her longing, and Merle, ever wise and observant, lets his gaze soften on her. 

"Yeah. They're mine. That's my dad, we all called him the Doc Highchurch, and that's the woman I married." 

Julia notices him skip over the word wife. She does not have far to infer. 

"Those are her children?" she asks, pointing to a young girl with a startlingly grand beard growing in, and holding the hand of a muddy younger boy. 

"The girl's hers, that's Mavis. Mookie's mine." Merle's voice swells with pride, and they take a few moments to just admire the children in the photogram for a short moment. 

"Did you, ahem," Merle coughs for a moment, but by the time Julia wonders if she should thump his back he gets his bearings. "Did you come in here just to look at washed up old memories?" he teases. 

Julia snaps her fingers. "That's right! Mags wanted to see your axe, L'il Choppy--"

"You remembered!" 

"Yes! To see if there could be any work done reinforcing the handle or carving something nice into it." Julia flaps a hand in the direction of the axe in question. "And, admittedly, I'd like to see if the blade needs any work." she adds sheepishly. 

"Oh, sure! The old fart probably needs a good old spa treatment anyways. And I guess L'il Choppy too!" Merle laughs and fetches the axe. "Hey, James?" 

"James?" Julia raises her eyebrows. 

"Merle smiles. "Pan knows the Bureau and our lives would be a lot duller without you in it." 

Taken aback, Julia makes an incredulous face before laughing, her frizzy brown hair bouncing with her shoulders. "Oh, Merle, you made me think something was wrong! Well, thank you nonetheless. You're a wonderful friend."

"And be good to L'il Choppy!" Merle adds when Julia turns out the door.


End file.
